


Something Foreknown to Me

by Revasnaslan



Series: Sunlight Verse [1]
Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, F/M, Fluff, Moderate Violence, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-02
Updated: 2020-03-07
Packaged: 2020-11-22 03:28:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20867453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Revasnaslan/pseuds/Revasnaslan
Summary: "I need to tell Hordak. He'll understand!"She nearly missed the faint crackling of static behind her.





	1. Part I

**Author's Note:**

> me, arriving like two months late with starbucks to the entrapdak fic writing party: i'm here!!
> 
> i finally managed to find the time to finish this one of my wips (i started this maybe three weeks ago?), so here we are. a canon divergence fic about what might've happened if entrapta hadn't actually been shocked by catra in S3. originally this was gonna be a one-shot... then it was gonna be a short chaptered fic... then it spawned a whole au i want to do, so yknow there's that.

Adora’s little theory about the instability of the portal machine had its merits—Entrapta was willing to admit as much. She had noticed the anomalies during her initial tests, but she had written them off as unimportant, convinced herself that the experiment could go on and be successful in the face of adversity. As an experienced scientist, she should have known better. However, with hindsight, she realized she had been… distracted. Hopeful, even. She had spent hours looking over the star charts that Hordak had given her access to in the Horde databases. There was so much she could have learned if they managed to get the portal to work and send a message through.

But if the portal was truly as dangerous as Adora had claimed, if it could destroy everything… well, Entrapta was not willing to risk that.

So, she had retreated to her personal quarters, where her own lab still stood, although she rarely used it much anymore. Most of her time had been spent in the sanctum in recent days. She didn’t know how long she had been there, perched on a shelf of her hair, when Scorpia had joined her. Entrapta hadn’t asked why Scorpia was here instead of with Catra, but Scorpia had seemed to want some companionship, and Entrapta was happy to provide while she worked.

“Ah, boy, I really appreciate you letting me assist you,” Scorpia spoke up from where she was sitting atop a nearby crate. “I miss hanging out! You’ve been so busy with Hordak lately, and Catra—” She cut off abruptly, and there was a short pause. Not long enough for Entrapta to interject, but long enough for her to notice that Scorpia had stopped speaking. When Scorpia next spoke, her voice had taken on a much more somber tone. “I mean… she’s got her new friends…”

Entrapta didn’t say anything in response, although she had been listening—she _ always _ listened to her friends when they were talking and tried to offer them engagement where she could. However, most of her focus at the moment was trained on the computer screen in front of her. Where before she had been optimistic, now she was just confused. The more calculations she ran, the _ worse _ the outcome seemed to become. How could she have overlooked these anomalies for so long?

She scratched the crown of her head with a stray flock of hair, frowning at the screen. Then, before her very eyes, the simulation figuratively blew up, in quite spectacular fashion. It might have been beautiful if it wasn’t so foreboding and hadn’t spelled the end of the universe as they knew it.

Leaning back in her makeshift seat, Entrapta groaned. “Oh, this is not good.”

Nearby, she heard Scorpia shift and then let out a soft sigh. “Oh, you want me to go, too?” she asked, sounding almost woeful as she began getting up to leave. “I understand, I’m probably in your way… I’ll just—”

“No, not that!” Entrapta said and her hair shot out to wrap around Scorpia’s bicep. She drag her friend across the room and set her down in front of the computer screen. “I’ve been running diagnostics on the portal. Watch.”

Slowly, the simulation played through again. Small symbols representing… well, instabilities, began popping up across Etheria, spreading like a plague over the surface of the planet. It was only after the instabilities had consumed the entire planet that the simulation exploded, leaving behind a rather over-the-top skull.

“You’re right… that is not good,” Scorpia said, seeming taken back by what she had just seen. She glanced at Entrapta, mouth set in a nervous frown. “Is… is that gonna happen? I mean, to the actual planet?”

“This is just an illustration… what will actually happen will be _ much _ worse,” Entrapta said, mirroring Scorpia’s frown as their gazes met, just for a moment. Scorpia looked even more concerned by that statement, and Entrapta turned her attention back to the screen. “If my numbers are right—and they are—if we open a portal the anomalies will be catastrophic.” As she spoke, she brought a flock of hair to her chin, thinking over her wording. “It’ll unhinge time and space, creating a warped reality that will collapse in on itself, erasing us for existence!”

Then, Entrapta sat back on her makeshift seat with an air of finality. “I never thought I’d say this, but we can’t go through with it!”

Nearby, the door to her personal quarters opened with a sharp _ hiss _ as it shifted along its track. Entrapta tore her gaze away from the simulation to see Catra enter the room, tailed by one of her new friends from the Crimson Waste. Beside her, Scorpia gasped happily and went to greet Catra, only to be shoved aside as Catra stormed past. Entrapta said nothing as Catra firmly grabbed hold of her by the biceps, physically lifting her off the shelf of hair she had been perched on, and drawing her close enough that the tips of their noses were almost touching. Discomfort by their sudden proximity flared in the back of Entrapta’s mind, but she was too dumbfounded by the sudden movement to really say anything.

“Why aren’t you in Hordak’s lab?” Catra’s demand came out as a shrill snarl.

Entrapta didn’t know why she was getting so huffy—there was still plenty of time for her to return to the sanctum, after all—but she thought on the question regardless, bringing a flock of hair to her chin. “Uh… mm…”

Catra did not seem to be in the most patient of moods, though. “There’s no time!” she snapped sharply instead, and Entrapta flinched back at the suddenness of her voice. “We need to fire up the portal machine!”

“We can’t!” Entrapta said, wiggling out of Catra’s grasp. She used her hair to quickly maneuver her way up and over Catra, landing easily on her feet a couple of feet away. “Opening a portal right now would be _ disastrous _! It’s going to collapse and take us all with it. Adora was right!”

While it was true that Catra could sometimes be very curt with her, or often times was outright feisty, she had listened to Entrapta in the past. On occasion, she had even aided Entrapta will her experiments, and offered insight where she could. Surely, Catra would be able to see reason.

“Adora was right.”

Entrapta looked up in surprise—something about the tone of voice Catra was using was… unsettling. It was far softer than she usually spoke in, but there was an underlying hiss there that left Entrapta feeling like she shouldn’t have been here. Catra stood there, laughing in an almost manic way, leaning forward so that her hair fell free of her headpiece.

“Adora gets _ everything _ she wants,” Catra continued as she stalked forward a couple of paces, towards Entrapta. She took a deep breath, as if trying to steady herself, and pushed her hair back into place. Her expression was twisted into something like hatred, and when Entrapta caught sight of her pupils, she noticed that they were barely visible slits. “But not this time,” Catra said, baring her canines. “This time I am going to win! I don’t care what it takes, we are opening that portal _ now _!”

“_ No _! I won’t!” Entrapta snapped, already turning away from Catra towards the door of her quarters before she had even finished speaking. “I need to tell Hordak. He’ll understand!” She had to get back to their sanctum, where Hordak was sure to have returned by now. If she warned him about the dangers the portal posed to Etheria, he’d listen to her. She knew he would.

She nearly missed the faint crackling of static behind her.

A chill ran up her spine, blood turning to ice in her veins as she realized that something was amiss. Her body reacted on instinct, and she twisted, agilely lifting herself up into the air using her hair as her only stepping stone. She felt electricity dance across her skin as she narrowly avoided being struck in the lower back. The near miss was enough to startle her, however, and she was thrown off balance, landing less than gracefully. She stumbled hard onto her knees, shaken but otherwise physically unharmed.

It was a small mercy, given what she saw when she turned and shakily pushed herself back to her feet. Catra was standing where Entrapta had been mere moments before, frozen in place and brandishing a still sparking stun baton. A direct hit would have been enough to knock her out and leave her entirely at Catra’s mercy. Entrapta let out a soft, shaky breath as she fully grasped what had just happened—that Catra had literally just tried to stab her in the back. Perhaps not to kill, but certainly to injure.

But the data… the data had said that Catra was her friend. Clearly, the data had been wrong.

This was not the time nor the place to dwell on that, though. Catra’s gaze snapped in Entrapta’s direction, her pupils little more than slivers of black on blue-and-gold. There was a flash of pearly white fangs as Catra’s lips curled back into the makings of a snarl, and Entrapta’s heart leapt into her throat. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew that she should have been trying to escape—to _ run _—but she remained locked in place under Catra’s stare. It had been a long time since she had felt genuine fear for another person… but right now, Catra was unpredictable.

“Someone grab her!” Catra barked suddenly.

Neither Scorpia or the goat woman from the Crimson Waste moved. They didn’t seem to have fully registered what Catra had just ordered of them. Both appeared to be still lingering in their own shock from witnessing the events that had just occurred right before their very eyes.

“I said _ grab her _!” Catra repeated, and Entrapta flinched at the shrillness of her voice. “We can’t let her warn Hordak—”

In her shock at Catra’s betrayal, Entrapta had forgotten—if only for a brief moment—that she had been intending to leave and return to the sanctum. When her attention had lapsed, Catra had seen it as an opportunity to attack her, probably because of the vested interest she had in seeing the portal opened.

There was a flicker of movement in her peripheral vision, dragging her from her thoughts, and Entrapta barely had time to dodge as Catra lunged at her. The stun baton whizzed past her eat with a sharp crackle of electricity, making the hair on the back of her neck standing on end. She stumbled as she rolled out of the way, landing hard on her shoulder and crying out as pain shot up her arm. In spite of the pain, she found the strength to roll back up onto her feet with the help of her hair.

Catra landed a couple of feet away, but unlike Entrapta, she hadn’t hurt herself on the way down. Instead, she rose slowly back to her feet again, canines bared and hair wild. There was nothing but contempt and hatred in her gaze as she stared Entrapta down. Holding her shoulder, Entrapta’s breath came out in sharp pants, and she glanced around the room wildly, looking for any possible escape routes. Though she was capable of defending herself if need be, Entrapta was not suited for combat—especially when it was three-on-one.

The closest vent was beyond where Scorpia stood—it was the quickest escape route, but Entrapta didn’t know if Scorpia was still her friend or not. She couldn’t risk it with the reach that Scorpia had. The only other way out of the room was through the doorway that led out into the halls of the Fright Zone. The goat woman from the Crimson Waste who had been standing there was now moving towards where Entrapta was standing, finally following Catra’s command, but leaving an opening in the process.

Entrapta surged forward, reaching out with a tendril of hair and and weaving past the head of Catra’s crony. She landed harder than she meant to in her haste to escape, but continued running anyway. Behind her, she heard more shouting—Catra’s shouting, to be specific. The shrillness was a dead giveaway. Whether she was spitting out more orders or shouting profanities and insults didn’t matter to Entrapta. She didn’t dare look back.

The halls of the Fright Zone were monotonous for the most part, and said by some to be difficult to navigate. Entrapta had never really thought much of it, given she more frequently traveled through the ventilation system—nobody knew how to navigate it like her, save perhaps Imp. If she could just make it to an access vent, she would be safe, and she could get back to the sanctum and warn Hordak about the portal. But it was not that simple.

Fear crept its way into her gut as she heard someone following mere paces behind her—the footfalls were distinct and sent a jolt of fear into her gut that could only be rivaled by how her heart leapt into her throat when she hear a stun baton charging up. As she darted around the next corner, sliding across the floor in her haste, she heard the discharge shot from the stun baton collide violently with the wall. Debris fell in its wake, literally the floor with shards of synthetic alloy. Catra was still gaining after her, mere steps separating them now. Entrapta was forced to dive to the side again as Catra leapt through the air and twisted mid-jump, lashing out with her claws.

Entrapta landed on her already sore shoulder a second time, and this time the pain was overwhelming. She nearly bit her tongue as she hit the floor with a pitiful, strangled whine in the back of her throat. Blood had also welled up on her brow, running down her face from a deep nick that Catra had managed to land there. It seeped into her hair and temporarily blinded her in one eye. Despite that, she could still see well enough to notice that Catra was stalking towards, aiming the stun baton at her. Entrapta scrambled backwards until her back met the wall, her breathing ragged.

Then, there was a loud screech to her left, and she watched with wide eyes as a little blue blur slammed into Catra’s side, knocking her over hard enough to wind her.

Imp let out a second, higher pitched shriek before he glided over to where Entrapta was sitting, frozen in place on the floor. She took a moment she didn’t have to breathe, watching wordlessly as Imp tugged on a flock of her hair as if to encourage her to stand. She only did so when she heard more footsteps approaching from the hallway, shakily pushing herself back to her feet. Then, she scooped Imp up in her arms before hurrying off down the hallway and leaving Catra where she had been on the floor groaning.

Much to Entrapta’s relief, as she came around another corner, she spotted a vent opening. She quickly lifted both herself and Imp inside before carefully fixing the grille back in place. Once they were safe, she tried to steady herself—air was refusing to stay in her lungs, but she screwed her eyes shut and hugged Imp close. He let out a soft warbling sound, rubbing his cheek against hers. She recognized the gesture. He was attempting to comfort her in one of the only ways he knew how. It was enough to bring a small smile to her lips.

Her hold on Imp tightened as she heard voices down below.

“Maybe—maybe you could… I don’t know, apologize?” Scorpia’s voice came up through the grille—worried, confused, indecisive. “You scared her pretty bad. If—if you just tell her that you’re sorry, maybe she’ll—”

“What? Put in a good word?” Catra drawled, her voice coming out in a low, sharp hiss.

“Well, maybe—” Scorpia tried to speak up again.

The stun baton sparked again—the noise was so distinct that it was difficult to mistake it for anything else—and Entrapta flinched back at the mere sound of it. As she tensed, Imp let out a hiss in her arms and squirmed as if to get free and slip out of the vent to attack. Entrapta shushed him quietly as she could, wrapping him more snuggly in her hair and tucking him beneath her chin.

“That is not going to happen,” Catra snapped. “And I doubt that Hordak will be very merciful when he finds out that I tried to hurt his little pet!”

Scorpia said nothing, but Entrapta could clearly picture her staring at Catra in horror, shock, or fear.

“If you’re not going to help me, then stay out of my way,” Catra said, voice dangerously low. “Or I’ll ensure you do.”

The stun baton powered down with a high-pitch whir, and Entrapta allowed her shoulders to relax as someone stalked away and disappeared down the hall, heading in the direction of the sanctum. Carefully, Entrapta leaned over and peered out of the grate. Scorpia seemed to be rooted in place, and there was a look of utter devastation and shock on her features. She did not follow after Catra, as she often did without question—often to the detriment of her own wellbeing, in hindsight. Instead, Scorpia fell to her knees and let out a single, shaky breath.

Entrapta knew that she should probably have gotten out of the vent and comforted Scorpia—who was still her friend, judging by what had just transpired. However, she also knew that she didn’t have time to dwell on it. She had to get to the sanctum and warn Hordak about the instabilities of the portal before Catra got there and did something foolish.

Leaving Scorpia behind, Entrapta began making her way through the ventilation system, using her hair for traction as she continued holding Imp close to her chest. The bright yellow glow of his eyes was the only source of light in the otherwise pitch black of the vents, but Entrapta knew where to go. She followed the bends and twists of the ducts, and as she grew closer to where the sanctum was, she heard chaos unfolding down below. The Fright Zone must have had a security breach, which explained Catra’s urgency with opening the portal—all the more reason to get back to the sanctum and Hordak. She’d be safer there with him than she would’ve been elsewhere in the Fright Zone.

When she finally arrived at the sanctum, she cautiously checked the room first, to make sure there were no hostiles inside. Through the grate, she saw Hordak standing in front of the functioning power source, seeming mesmerized by the crackling of electricity that was shooting off of the Sword of Protection. Nearby, Adora was still tied to the column where Entrapta had left her earlier, gag back in place over her mouth.

She tumbled out from the vent, landing less than gracefully with a soft gasp. On the far side of the sanctum, one of Hordak’s ears gave a flick as he heard her. When he turned his greet her, his gaze was initially softer, and he had opened his mouth as if to say something. Whatever words he had been intending to say seemed to die in his throat when he saw the state she was in, though. His brow creased in concern instead, and he abandoned his post in front of the portal to make his way over to her instead, ignoring Adora as she screeched behind her gag at him.

When he reached Entrapta, he reached out, almost tentatively, to check the shoulder she was clutching. The pain had dulled somewhat since her second fall, but it still hurt, and she let out a soft whimper as he touched her. Hordak’s ears drooped, mouth setting in a hard line as he took hold of her chin, taking care with his talons, and turned her head so that he could check the nick on her brow. The blood had stopped running, but it had still caked into her hair, dying the normally purple strands a deep burgundy. 

He looked away from her for only a moment, glancing at Imp. “Go and scout the halls,” he commanded. “If you see any intruders, attack on sight.”

Imp chirped and nodded before he wriggled out of Entrapta’s hold and glided back into the ventilation system, leaving Entrapta and Hordak—mostly—alone. Only once Imp was gone, did Hordak turn his full attention back to Entrapta.

“What. Happened?” he demanded, brow furrowing in thinly concealed rage.

Entrapta tried to steady her breathing, but it was still difficult to keep air in her lungs. “_ Catra _,” was all she managed to get out.

Hordak’s gaze darkened, but before he could say anything in response, there was a flicker of movement somewhere behind her. This close, Entrapta noticed how his pupils dilated briefly in response to it, only to retract back to slits when he looked away towards the doorway to the sanctum. Entrapta didn’t have time to react before he stepped around her to place himself between her and the person who had just entered the sanctum—her stomach dropped as she recognized Catra.

“The Princesses are here!” Catra said urgently as she skidded to a halt mere feet away. She didn’t bother to acknowledge Entrapta’s presence at all. “We have to activate the portal _ now _!”

Hordak did not move, and Entrapta lingered at his elbow, half-hidden behind him as she peeked out warily at Catra. Her hair curled against his shoulder blades, and where it rested lightly against his armor, she could feel the tension there. Dread settled in the pit of her gut. Catra could easily send Hordak into a rage if she managed to find a vulnerability in his armor to prod—another ‘tizzy’ could have shorted out his armor, which was still in need of repair, and leave them both vulnerable.

“Why is Entrapta injured?” Hordak questioned, his voice little more than a low hiss. “She says _ you _ are the cause of it.”

The accusation gave Catra pause. It was brief, perhaps less than a second if Entrapta guessed right—just enough time for Catra to concoct an excuse that would cover her own blunder. Then, Catra smirked and crossed her arms over her chest, projecting confidence as she lifted her chin defiantly. The tip of her tail flicked back and forth in a way that Entrapta knew to be a telltale sign of coming aggression. Her eyes lingered on how the light from the nearby vitrines caught on Catra’s claws.

“Who do you think let the Princesses in, Lord Hordak?” Catra asked, in a saccharine tone that oozed contempt. Her eyes narrowed, locking on where Entrapta stood, still mostly hidden behind Hordak.

“I didn’t let the Princesses in. I didn’t even know any of them besides Adora were here!” Entrapta said, brow furrowing in confusion. “Why are you lying?”

Catra tilted her head, ears flicking in irritation. “Why are you?” she countered before turning her gaze back to Hordak. “When I found her aiding the Princesses, I tried to apprehend her. She fled and made her way here, so that she could sabotage the very portal she helped you create—”

“Stop it!” Entrapta snapped as she emerged from the safety of Hordak’s shadow, fists clenched at her side and hair frizzing up in rage. It was only then that she realized Hordak had yet to say anything in response, or step in to stop Catra’s accusations. Any anger that Entrapta had been feeling immediately dissipated and was instead replaced by dread sinking into the pit of her gut, heavy and unyielding like a stone. Fresh tears were already welling up in the corners of her eyes, threatening to fall.

She didn’t want to lose another friend today.

“She wouldn’t…”

Although his voice was soft, Entrapta could hear the confidence in it—he didn’t doubt what he had just said. Glancing up at him, she watched mutely as Hordak stepped in front of her again, physically putting himself between her and Catra. His gaze, however, was locked on the former Force Captain, unwavering as if he was expecting her to lash out at any moment. Blinking back the tears from her eyes, Entrapta gave a soft smile as her sadness faded.

“Even if she came here to ‘sabotage’ the portal as you claim,” Hordak continued, voice deathly calm. “I would assume she has a good reason for doing so.”

“I do!” Entrapta chirped as she lifted herself off the ground with her hair. She leaned over his shoulder, holding out her datapad for him to see. “I have a whole simulation, actually. Would you like to see?”

Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Hordak’s outwardly calm demeanor faltered when he seemed to realize just how close she actually was. He recovered quickly, though, and he finally looked away from Catra, briefly meeting Entrapta’s gaze before glancing down at the datapad. “Go on.”

Entrapta’s smile broaded to a grin, and she leaned closer so they were nearly cheek to cheek. “It really is quite fascinating—if a teensy bit deadly!” she said, motioning to the screen with a stray flock of hair. The simulation played through, showing how the planet, and then reality as a whole, would collapse in on itself and take them all along with it. “As you can see, Adora was actually correct! If we try to open a portal—not just now, but at _ all _—the results will be—”

Catra scoffed suddenly, and Entrapta flinched at the sound, cutting off her speech. An irritated snarl rose in the back of Hordak’s throat as he glared at Catra again, but she was unperturbed.

“I cannot believe this,” she hissed, tail lashing back and forth. “You’re _ seriously _ listening to her?”

“Considering _ you _ have proven yourself to be a compulsive liar, yes,” Hordak said.

Catra’s gaze narrowed, and the flash of her canines in the low light of the sanctum was unmistakable. “If the Princesses gain access to the portal, they will _ destroy _ it.”

“Let them,” Hordak said simply. “Entrapta is more important than the portal.”

His words didn’t immediately register to her. Well, the _ words _ did, but the _ meaning _ behind them, that confused her. She knew from experience that trying to get Hordak to say what he meant could be a process, depending on the subject, and it was not uncommon at all for him to descend into stilted rambling as he struggled to put words together. She had always listened, of course. Found it sweet, even, how hard he tried despite his clear lack of experience of experience with genuine companionship. But this… this was…

_ She _ was more important to him than the portal? And he had said it like it was as natural as breathing for him. A giddy feeling rose in her chest, and she was struck by the sudden urge to kiss him for it. A soft, elated hum rose in her throat as a tendril of her hair curled around his shoulder.

“This way!” a familiar voice shouted from beyond the threshold of the sanctum.

Behind them, Adora screamed through her gag again, although her words were muffled. Beneath the touch of Entrapta’s hair, she felt Hordak tense abruptly as Bow, Glimmer, and _ Shadow Weaver _ rushed into the sanctum. When Catra had said that the Princesses were within the Fright Zone, Entrapta had assumed that Bow and Glimmer would show up, but Shadow Weaver reappearing was a surprise. Had she been in Bright Moon all this time? She didn’t have time to think, as they immediately started attacking. Catra was shot at first, and sent skidding across the floor of the sanctum by one of Bow’s trick arrows. When Bow took aim at them and fired another arrow, Hordak quickly shifted so that he was shielding her entirely again, catching the arrow with his bare hand and cracking it half within his grip.

Entrapta almost shouted to tell them that there was no reason for them to be there, that she had already explained everything to Hordak and they both knew that the portal was unstable and dangerous. However, Hordak was more intent on putting as much distance between them and the Princesses as possible. Before she could react, Hordak had turned and lifted her over his shoulder as he darted over the far side of the sanctum where there was more cover. Behind them, she saw as Glimmer and Shadow Weaver held hands, dark energy fizzling across the connection.

She was set down on the ground nearby one of the newer pillars in the sanctum. No sooner had her feet met the floor, did Hordak duck as another arrow whizzed past his ear, embedding itself in the nearby wall. She didn’t know what Bow had been aiming for, but judging by the irritated growl Hordak let out, Bow’s sharpshooting was beginning to wear on his nerves. She watched, wide-eyed, as Hordak grabbed hold of the pillar beside them and ripped it from it’s foundations, lobbing it across the sanctum at where the intruders were standing. However, it stopped mid-air, floating there uselessly under the power of Shadow Weaver and Glimmer’s combined magic, which cast an eerie glow across the sanctum.

Then, they threw it directly into the nearby wall, and the damage was instantaneous. The ceiling began to collapse in on itself. Hordak wrapped an arm around her, holding her close to his chest and shielding her head with one of his arms as debris and pips cascaded from above. A couple landed close by, but none hit them outright. Entrapta lifted her head, watching in horror as another, much larger pipe fell from above, cutting Shadow Weaver, Bow, and Glimmer off from the portal’s switch and Adora.

Dawning horror rose in her gut as she watched Catra push herself to her feet and approach the switch. 

“Catra, please, don’t!” Adora pleaded.

Catra’s hand lingered barely an inch from the switch, and for a moment, it looked as though Catra was considering Adora’s words…

And then she pulled it.

The arm that was around Entrapta’s shoulders tightened, drawing her closer to Hordak’s chest, and she returned the gesture, wrapping her hair around his waist. But she didn’t look at him as she pressed against his side. Her eyes were transfixed on the portal as it rose into the air and swirled around.

The last thing she saw was the Sword of Protection, floating within a void of white.


	2. Part II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so i might've taken a four month hiatus from this fic for no other reason than being unable to muster up the will to rewatch the S3 finale just to get entrapta's last scene... and then i got another fic idea after S4 (which you can read [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22276336/chapters/53199082) if you're interested in an au where prime and hordak are blood brothers that is still relatively aligned with canon) that completely stole my attention and i've been working on posting that instead up until now...
> 
> regardless i finally finished this chapter :')

Entrapta jolted awake, sucking down air as if she had been drowning. Her hair seemed to move of its own accord, frizzing up and flying every which way. In her panic, she lost her balance and tumbled from her seat at her workstation, landing hard on her shoulder. She gritted her teeth as she hit the floor of her lab, expecting searing pain to shoot up through her arm and shoulder… 

… but other than a slight twinge, she felt nothing.

Breathing deeply, Entrapta righted herself as her hair settled in a ring around her on the floor. She frowned as her breathing finally evened out… why would she have been expecting pain in her shoulder? She hadn’t injured it recently from what she could remember. As she lifted herself off the floor using her hair, she experimentally rolled her shoulder beneath her hand. There was nothing besides a lingering twinge from her fall. Tapping her chin, she settled onto a shelf of her own hair, crossing her legs beneath herself.

A curious development to be certain, assuming that she should have felt pain for no discernible reason. Such an anomaly demanded documentation!

She dug her recorder out of one of the pockets of her overalls, ready to begin her latest entry, only to pause before she could. It was, at times, difficult for her to tell exactly how much time had passed while she was within her lab. Occasionally, she wouldn’t emerge for weeks at a time, too engrossed in her work to even consider leaving—it wasn’t like she needed to, with the amount of assistance she received from her bots. Even so, she usually had a rough idea of how long she had spent inside. Right now, however, her mind was drawing a blank… the most logical conclusion was to check her last recording.

“ _ Day ninety-three! This is one of my first forays into examining a crystal that was recently extracted from within the mines of Dryl. If I am successful in deciphering this code, then I may be one step closer to unlocking the mysteries of Etheria. _ ”

Entrapta frowned as she listened to her own voice. It was, objectively, a recording—one that she had certainly made at some point in time—but something about it didn’t feel right. She vaguely recalled saying those words, in that order, at some point in time, but it did not feel like she had just said them mere hours ago. The easiest explanation that she could think of at that moment was that she had simply grabbed the wrong recorder, but even that didn't make sense. She always archived her older logs for future reference, just in case she needed to cross-reference them at a later date. She was meticulous about it, too.

She knew which crystal this recording was talking about. Like the recording had said, she had been ecstatic to receive it when she realized the sheer amount of intact code that the crystal held. It would surely aid her in her research… but something was off. Wrong. Her head felt heavy, her confusion deepening even further…

There was a bright flash, as though there had been a sudden surge of electricity—where the flash came from she didn’t know. In the back of her mind, she saw her robots swarming around her. Attacking her. Their eyes had gone from their usual muted purple, to a bright angry red, and some kind of corruption was seeping out from their power cores. Terror had settled in her chest as she ran through the narrow, hidden passages that made up the Crypto Castle, sliding through the ducts that made up Dryl’s internal labyrinth.

Trying desperately to survive until help arrived. She couldn’t take on all the bots alone.

The vision was over just as quickly as it had come on. Wordlessly, Entrapta glanced around her lab, looking over the bots that lined the walls. Most of them were in low-power mode or had been shut off completely to recharge…

… and, to her relief, all of them had purple eyes.

—

On a purely objective level, Entrapta supposed she could describe this world as ‘perfect’. Nobody had come to bother her since she had woken up from her impromptu nap, allowing her to work for what must have been several days without interruption. She hadn’t needed to recharge at all during that time, not even a quick nap, and her food was being delivered on schedule.

“ _ Day ninety-three! This is one of my first forays into examining a crystal that was recently— _ ”

The light whirl of the recorder rewinding echoed across the otherwise silent lab. There was an audible click as Entrapta pressed the playback button yet again.

“ _ Day ninety-three! _ ”

In a desperate attempt to discern any kind of hidden meaning from the recording, Entrapta had been listening to it over and over and over again. There had to be something she missing, some kind of clue that would help her figure out what was going on. Even if the world was ‘perfect’, nothing about it felt right, and she was not content. Entrapta had yet to figure out the how or the why, but she knew  _ something _ was off. 

Since she had been given the liberty of being unbothered for several days, Entrapta ahd been spending all of her time going through some of her older recordings and cross-referencing them in a hope of finding some kind of connecting thread. There hadn’t been any—because that would’ve been too easy—with each recording being just as mundane as the last, but it hadn’t hurt to cover her bases.

“ _ —am successful in deciphering this code— _ ”

The recording cut off— _ yet again _ —as she rewound it. Her jaw clenched as she heard her own voice cheerfully proclaim the date—for what was probably the hundredth time—before recording-her went off on a highly detailed explanation of her alleged current experiment. One that she held vague memories for in the back of her mind, one that she knew must have gone south if her own bots had been attacking her. After having what she could only describe as an out-of-body experience, she had deduced that what she had seen was somehow related to her current predicament. She must have completely her observations of the disk at some point in the past… yet there was no evidence for it in her lab, not even a recording that came  _ after _ the one she had been listening to on loop.

She was safe within the confines of her lab, and her bots were not out for her blood.

Frustration was a concept that Entrapta was familiar with. Every good scientist felt it at one time or another. However, she didn’t usually allow her frustration to distract her from working past the obstacles that stood in her way. Whatever this… thing she was currently mixed up in was, it was pushing her limits, and she was about ready to throw her recorder at the nearest wall.

_ Well, there’s no reason to get huffy just because an experiment failed. Failure is an important part of any scientific endeavor! _

The world around her shifted suddenly—one moment, she was in the familiar labs of Dryl, and the next, an unfamiliar room that was cast in shadow. The ceiling above her looked to be haphazardly put together, constructed out of exposed pipes and bared wiring, while the walls were bathed in a fluorescent greenish hue from vitrines that lined the perimeter of the room. Beside her, there was an unusual spherical robot with a leg that seemed to stick when it waddled around.

It seemed to be a… lab? No, that wasn’t the right word.

_ Ooh. He calls his lab a ‘sanctum’? Oh, that is so classy! _

The words were familiar to Entrapta, and she could feel them on her tongue, but she couldn’t remember when she had said them before now.

Her head swam as the world shifted around her again. This time, she was knelt on the floor of the  _ sanctum _ , messing around with the uninsulated cables attached to what appeared to be a power source of some kind. Someone loomed behind her as she worked, casting a shadow and making it more difficult to see what she was doing. She lifted her welding mask out of her face as she looked up at them, but the other person was nothing more than a vague apparition. Their features were next to impossible to discern, save for their eyes, which glowed a deep, blood red, and appeared to be ringed with black makeup.

_ You’re blocking my light. If you could just step aside? _

Suddenly, Entrapta was thrust back into the gloom of her personal lab back in Dryl—although she had never truly left it. She stumbled as her feet nearly gave way out from beneath her, and she latched onto the edge of her desk in an attempt to steady herself. Her stomach was in knots and she dry heaved over the surface of her desk. She was left standing there, shoulders shaking as she took a couple of deep breaths and tried to make sense of what had just happened.

—

The visions—as she had begun to call them, not really knowing how else to describe them—came about with increasing frequency after that. Thankfully, the more often they occurred, the less she was subjected to head-spinning nausea when she came back to herself. She had yet to figure out what the visions truly were, but she believed she was making some amount of headway in that regard. With what data she had collected from her observations, she didn’t think they were prophetic in nature or from the future. She had already run the parameters on the possibility of time travel, only to come up with a dead end, so she had shelved that particular explanation from the time being.

Her other thought was that the visions were… flashes, so to speak, of what was missing from this supposedly ‘perfect’ world.

For instance, she had seen the same spherical robot several times—the one that made loud  _ bwoops _ and walked around with a leg that stuck, following her throughout familiar-yet-unknown halls of green. There was also a small boy with blue skin, glowing yellow eyes, and little wings. He seemed to be quite fond of her, helping her fetch tools that were out of his reach while she worked in exchange for chin scratches and a perch on her shoulder. While Entrapta had yet to figure out their names, she knew that both of them were important to her in some way.

Whenever a vision of one of them passed, she was left with a heavy feeling in her chest… one of longing for their company. She  _ missed _ them, and she couldn’t even truly remember who they were.

Even though she had discounted time travel, she had noticed that around her, other things didn’t add up. She had realized shortly after the third or fourth vision that she couldn’t even remember what had happened to her over the last couple of days. The kitchen staff had begun sending her food far too frequently for it to be normal. Even though it seemed like it had been days since she had last slept, she didn’t even feel closer to being tired…

Time around her seemed to be…  _ unraveling _ itself, in some manner of form. It would have been fascinating if it wasn’t so concerning.

She couldn’t think of a cause for it either, even though she felt like she should have known. Like it should have been easy for her to figure out what was going on. It was just a feeling in the back of her mind, like she had studied such a phenomenon before, but couldn’t remember how or where or when… like she knew the answer and it was within her grasp, but was being held just out of her reach.

In the past, she had found that tinkering helped her think, and she had worked through many an ethical dilemma or hypothetical by fiddling with one of her bots. The one she was working on right now was one of the new ones—sleek in design, tall, with large purple ocular processors, an angular face, a crest at the crown of its skull, and a bright gem at its throat. She couldn’t remember the source of her inspiration, but she felt a familiarity there on par with what she felt when she saw visions of the spherical bot and little blue boy.

Earlier she had felt a pang in her chest… like something had just been taken from the world, and she didn’t know what to do about it. That had only added to her frustrations with the situation and how she was struggling to understand what was happening around her. So, she had made this bot, and found that in a way, it had almost filled the void that had been left behind.

“It just doesn’t make sense, y’know?” she said as she fiddled with one of the exposed circuits within the bot’s neck, near to the crystal that was displayed at its throat. “Tilt your head, please—” The bot did as it was told without issues. “—like, I don’t usually make bots as quickly as I made you, I swear I only started building you like twenty minutes ago! And yet here you are, almost completely finished… don’t you think that’s weird?”

The bot gave a contemplative beep, but said nothing back. Most of her bots were incapable of speech, as she didn’t often install voice boxes, but she felt it might have been pertinent here. And once again, she didn’t know  _ why _ …

Sighing, she reached out to play the recording that had been occupying all of her attention she had woken up from a nap days ago, feeling the compulsion to do so. There had to be something she was missing.

_ Day 135. _

In the back of her mind, she heard her own voice again.

_ This could finally be it. Initiating first test. Here we go! _

This time the vision was rather unclear, little more than a couple of quick flashes. 

Bright green light, swirling before her like a vortex. She was smiling from ear-to-ear, in complete awe of what they had created together. Then, the emergency lights flashed, there was an explosion, she was sent to the ground—shielded, uninjured, and  _ confused _ because—

_ It’s powered, it’s functioning, but it won’t open a— _

“Portal,” Entrapta finished for herself, almost breathlessly. “Portal… it’s… it’s a portal…” 

Then, she gave an excited whoop, twirling around her latest bot, spinning it around on its unsteady feet.

—

After that, she eagerly started compiling her observations, checking them against other readings she had picked up. It seemed as though reality was slowly collapsing in on itself due to an unstable portal somewhere in their world.

Again, fascinating, if it wasn’t so terrifying.

With time being as wonky as it was, though, she didn’t know how much time had passed before three people came crashing into her lab through the duct systems.

“Hello!” she said, mask still over her face, as she tilted her head to the side at the newcomers. “Do I know you?”

—

Entrapta was positively giddy as she lounged on a shelf of her hair, kicking her legs through the air. Opposite of her sat three teenagers—two girls and a boy—who seemed to know who she was even though she couldn’t remember ever seeing them before in her life.

“This is  _ fascinating _ ! I’ve never had non-robots visit me before! Usually it’s just me and all my friends!” She punctuated her words with a loud slurp from the fizzy drink she was holding in a stray flock of her hair.

One of her visitors—the blonde girl, who had already introduced herself as Adora—stared at her with wide eyes. She seemed confused, glancing at the robots that stood nearby with a wary glance. “… friends?”

“Are they  _ amazing _ ?” Entrapta said happily as she rose up, carefully balancing her weight on her hair and grabbed hold of one of the bots by its head. “And if they break, I can just make new friends!” Then, she laughed loudly, flipping upside down, still held up in the air by her hair.

Smiling at her three visitors again, she added, “Tiny snacks?”

One of her bots—an older model that was in need for a revamp—hurried forward, carrying a covered tray in its hands. Lifting the lid, the bot revealed an assortment of bits and pieces of metal, before throwing on what it seemed to think was a ‘garnish’. Adora and her companions stared at the tray in shock before quickly shaking their heads in unison. Only then did the bot disappear back into the surrounding group, taking the tray with it.

“Oh, sorry about that… they’re still getting the hang of  _ people _ food,” Entrapta said, with a slightly embarrassed undertone. She really should have thought to adjust her bots protocols so they would be able to properly prepare food for her guests. At the time she hadn’t seen the need… 

But then again! It had been such a long time since she had interacted with people from outside of Dryl. Perhaps they did things differently in the other kingdoms.

“Unless this is what you eat!” she said as her giddiness returned. “I have so many questions, tell me everything!” She thrust her recorder into Adora’s face—obviously the girl would have some kind of interesting explanation for what she and her friends were doing here and how they had managed to get into Dryl through the ventilation system!

Adora took a deep breath as she carefully pushed the recorder out of her face. Her expression had shifted completely, from nervousness and confusion to one of utmost seriousness. “Entrapta…” she began, speaking softly, as if she was worried about Entrapta not taking her seriously. “I know what I’m about to say sounds crazy—”

Entrapta edged forward another inch, peering at Adora as a smirk played on her lips. “Is this about the unstable portal slowly consuming and warping our reality?”

“Now, you’re not going to believe—” Adora paused and looked at her in surprise. “What did you just say?”

Entrapta was already moving over to her computer again. There, she perched atop a shelf of her hair and quickly began typing, bringing up several of the simulations that she had been running since she realized what was actually going wrong with the world.

“Oh, I figured it out a while ago!” she said, eager to explain what she had found—and it seemed like Adora was going to be more than willing to listen too! “An unstable portal is the only thing that would account for all of the anomalies I’ve been picking up in my research! The portal exists somewhere in our world, and as long as it’s still open, it’s gonna keep destabilizing reality, making it disappear faster and faster until,  _ bam _ ! There’s nothing left!”

She laughed, hugging her sides, before she immediately became somber again. “… which is a bad thing,” she admitted, as intriguing as she found the destabilization of the world around them.

Adora’s expression shifted again, brow knitting together as she stared back at Entrapta. “How do we stop it?”

“Portals are… gateways,” Entrapta began, motioning to the screen of her computer again. “Wormholes that connect one area of space to another. The only way to turn it off is from the  _ inside _ . But whoever shuts the portal down can’t leave…” As she spoke, an animation of someone trapped behind bars flashed across her computer screen—an easy enough way to make her point clear. “They’ll be trapped between realities, possibly forever!”

She squealed, grinning from ear to ear. “Ohhhhh, imagine the  _ data _ they could collect!”

Beside Adora, Glimmer’s eyes widened in shock. “Wait, so…” she began tentatively, sounding as concerned as Adora looked. “Whoever turns it off will be trapped inside  _ forever _ ?”

“Exactly,” Entrapta said matter-of-factly as she turned back to her computer and continued typing.

“There must be another way! Entrapta,  _ please _ , try and remember,” Adora said urgently. “When you and Hordak built the portal machine—”

_ Hordak… _

Entrapta’s eyes widened as a soft gasp escaped her lip. Three more ‘visions’ flashed through her mind as she remembered her Lab Partner. Him smiling at her as green light was cast over his features from their portal machine. His stuttering—but endearing—attempts to thank her for helping him. His pain and disorientation when his suit had had another ‘tizzy’ and he had collapsed to the floor… 

She remembered she hadn’t had the opportunity to fix it before everything had gone wrong.

“Remember… I remember…” she said almost breathlessly. “I had a Lab Partner… Hordak!” She gave a happy little hum, looking back at Adora, Glimmer, and Bow. “We were friends, and then Catra she—”

She cut off as another memory flashed through her mind—it felt as though a knife had been stabbed into her gut and twisted as she recalled electricity dancing across her skin. Catra chasing her through the Fright with the intent to harm. The sting of Catra’s claws slicing through her brow, Imp coming to her rescue and urging her to flee.

Catra trying to turn Hordak against her by lying to his face.

Hordak stepping in between her and Catra. Shielding her from harm, believing her when she insisted the portal machine was dangerous.

_ Entrapta is more important than the portal _ .

“I… I remember everything now…” she finally said as she glanced around the lab, brows knitting together. “This isn’t real.”

The lab gave a sudden, violent jerk beneath her feet, and Entrapta watched as bright cracks of light began forming along the surface of the walls and floor. It cascaded up towards the ceiling of her lab as small pieces of debris began breaking up and rising up through the air. Reality was unravelling itself right before very eyes.

In any other circumstance, she might have been amazed…

“No, no!” Adora said sharply, drawing Entrapta’s attention back to her. “This ca’t be happening already! We should have more time!”

“There’s… no more time…” Entrapta repeated, tapping her chin as she thought, going over every single piece of data she had collected since she had begun studying portals, since she had figured out what was going wrong with this reality… and then she recalled why the portal had refused to open for her and Hordak when they had been running their preliminary tests.

_ It’s like there’s a key. _

“It all makes sense now!” she said, meeting Adora’s gaze again. “It’s your sword! That portal is centered on  _ you _ , it’s following  _ you _ !”

“What?” Adora said, looking at her rather than the cracks forming in the very fabric of reality as it disintegrated around them. Her eyes widened in shock as she stared at Entrapta.

And that was when Entrapta realized that she must have been fading away—it seemed that reality had decided it was her turn to go. Thankfully, it seemed to be painless, and she managed a smile, even as Adora rushed towards her, reaching out to try and grab her. To save her.

“You need to remove the sword from the inside. It’s powering the portal,” Entrapta said, reiterating what she had already explained previously. Hoping that Adora would understand, that she  _ would _ find a way to fix this…

“As soon as it’s gone…  _ everything _ will be right again,” she continued—once reality was mended, she would be reunited with Hordak, Emily, and Imp… and she would make it up to them for forgetting them, even if she had done so unintentionally. 

Adora could fix this, make it alright again… Entrapta believed she could.

She offered Adora a reassuring smile. “It was nice being friends with you.”

And then she faded away into nothing.


	3. Part III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> finally finished this fic :3 it will be getting a sequel that follows the events of S4, altho i dunno when i'll find the time to actually get to posting it since i have another wip i want to finish asap

The world reappeared around Entrapta in a rush, and she gasped as if the air that had been punched straight from her lungs. 

It took a moment for her to regain her bearings, but when she finally managed to push herself up from where she lay on the floor of the sanctum and looked around, she found that the others looked just as disoriented as she felt. Shadow Weaver sat nearby, glancing around in confusion, where Bow and Glimmer were clinging to one another as though they feared being torn apart. Catra, however, was on the far side of the sanctum, close to the switch that activated the portal. She was clutching her cheek, eyes wide as though she had been shaken to her very core by whatever had transpired for her during the portal reality’s collapse.

Finally, Entrapta’s gaze fell upon Hordak, who had been thrown to the floor only a couple of paces from her. Although he was disheveled and his hair was falling into his face, he appeared to be otherwise fine—from the outside, at least. His armor was still in need of repair, and he was at great risk of further injury with the Princesses so close by… in no small part because he had made it clear earlier that he did not have any intentions of letting harm come to her at the expense of his own wellbeing.

Hordak was glancing around the sanctum, as if trying to make sense of his surroundings, and when he met her gaze, his ears and shoulders visibly relaxed.

A sharp, hissing whir cut through the relative silence of the sanctum, sudden enough to draw Entrapta’s attention back to the portal. Her eyes widened in horror as the portal began to rapidly expand, as though it was on the verge of collapsing in on itself. Entrapta scrambled to her feet, nearly tripping over herself in her haste as she darted over to where Hordak was struggling to stand. Though his footing was shaky, he managed to stay upright on his own. Entrapta pressed her hair against his back anyway.

The air around them shifted, and Entrapta felt stray energy dance across her skin like static. The whirring sound reached its crescendo, transitioning to a high-pitched whine, and she felt Hordak’s stance shift as second before a bright flash of white light tore through the sanctum, blinding Entrapta completely.

Terror clawed at her chest—when she opened her eyes, would she find herself back in Dryl, trapped within a collapsing reality where everything was perfect until it wasn’t?

The first thing she saw as her vision began to clear was the First One’s crystal fastened at Hordak’s throat, and she slowly became aware of his arms wrapped around her as he held her close to his chest. To shield her from the blast, she realized. That his first instinct upon seeing the portal destabilize had been to shield her caused a soft flutter in her chest that she didn’t have a name for, but it brought a soft smile to her lips nonetheless.

A flicker of movement in her peripheral vision drew Entrapta’s gaze back to the still-swirling vortex of the portal, as a large, glowing figure— _ She-Ra _ —stepped out from within. Entrapta watched, wide-eyed, as She-Ra pivoted on her heel and brought the Sword of Protection down through the portal’s frame, severing it clean in half and destroying the power conduit. The sheer force of it caused a tremor to run through the sanctum, knocking debris free from overhead.

For now, retreat was the safest thing they could do, but Hordak was frozen in place, looking around them with wide eyes as the sanctum threatened to collapse in over their heads.

“Hordak,” Entrapta said. Though her voice was soft, Hordak heard it anyway and glanced down at her. His ears had drooped so far the tips threatened to brush against his shoulders. She did her best to smile reassuringly at him, and took one of his hands into both of hers. “It’ll be fine!” she said gently, hoping that what she was saying was helping. “We can rebuild the sanctum, but we have to go now, okay?”

He didn’t respond, but when she gave his arm a tug, he followed her from the sanctum without complaint.

Entrapta only looked back once, just long enough to see She-Ra and the Princesses gathering in the middle of the sanctum as fragments of the ceiling cascaded down around them. If Catra had hung around, she didn’t notice her.

As they passed the steps leading up to the throne, Hordak stumbled and nearly collapsed, letting out a soft, wheezing hiss through his teeth. Without even thinking about it, Entrapta ducked beneath his arm, allowing him to lean some of his weight against her side. He was in bad shape—perhaps even worse shape than she had initially thought—and he’d only be allowed to recover if she could get them someplace safe. Her room would do for the time being, but with Hordak being as large as he was, Entrapta doubted he would be able to fit through the ventilation system. That left them with a long trek through the halls.

Emergency lights flared to life overhead as they exited the throne room, casting a red glow across the otherwise dark walls of the Fright Zone’s hallways. Even though the emergency lights had one function—to alert the inhabitants of the Fright Zone that something was amiss—Entrapta found their presence set her more at ease. If the lights were active, that meant that lock down protocols would have been underway. She had read up on some of them when she had first been accepted at the Fright Zone. Assuming all of the soldiers had evacuated to the bunkers, the halls would be almost entirely deserted until after a security team swept the entirety of the Fright Zone and declared it safe.

Nobody would see Hordak in this state except for her.

Hordak finally spoke up as they made their way past the hallway that Entrapta kew led to the Force Captain barracks, where most of the officers lived. “Entrapta? Where are we going?” he asked.

“My room,” Entrapta said simply before glancing up at him. Tilting her head to the sound, she frowned in concern. “That’s okay, isn’t it?”

Hordak hesitated to respond, glancing over his shoulder to look back the way they had just come from. He seemed confused, judging by the frown that had formed on his features and the twitch of his ears.

Entrapta looked over her own shoulder to follow his gaze. “What? Is someone following us?”

“… no,” Hordak said, quickly shaking his head. “I… It’s nothing… we should go.”

They made their way through the Fright Zone much more slowly than Entrapta would have liked, but she didn’t want to push Hordak unless she absolutely had to. All the while, she kept herself pressed firmly against his side, one arm around his waist while her other hand held onto his wrist to keep him at least somewhat grounded. Her hair had also fanned out to offer support in the event he did stumble and fell again. In spite of his injuries and fatigue, Hordak was on high alert, and he didn’t seem to have any intentions of letting his guard down now. His ears were constantly shifting, and at one point, swiveled backward so that he could listen behind them.

Thankfully, the halls remained deserted, and they were left alone.

Above them, the emergency lights continued to flash on and off, slowly and deliberately, but otherwise the halls were completely cast in shadow, making it rather difficult to see. While some might have found that off-putting, Entrapta was used to such conditions. Dryl tended to be much the same, so it didn’t bother her much, and she knew her way around the Fright Zone pretty well by now… at least, she knew how to get from the sanctum to where her room was located on one of the lower levels, hidden amongst the storage rooms, and when she eventually came to the door to her room, she stopped walking.

“… why have we stopped?” Hordak asked, his ears easing forward again.

“This is my room,” Entrapta said.

Hordak frowned and his ears gave a flick that seemed to be from surprise. “ _ This _ is where you’ve been living?”

Entrapta glanced up at him again, tilting her head to the side in confusion. It was true that the room was not the fanciest of places, as it was little more than a storage closet that she had commandeered to suit her needs, but it suited those needs perfectly. Besides, she didn’t understand why he was so confused… Imp often kept her company during the night, so she had assumed Hordak was well aware of what she slept.

“Yeah, why?” she finally said.

“I… well, I had assumed that you had moved into the officer’s barracks,” Hordak said, and the tips of his ears dusted a light shade of blue. “The amenities there are far better than… than…” He seemed at a loss for words, so he motioned to the room with a dismissive flick of his ears. “ _ This _ .”

Entrapta merely shrugged and smiled. “Well, that seems like a lot of work when I’m comfortable here, don’t you think?”

It was quieter down in this section of the Fright Zone anyway—the only other place quieter was the sanctum. People rarely bothered her,  _ and _ she was near the kitchens and could get food whenever she liked. After she and Hordak had become Lab Partners, the cooks had stopped getting so curt with her whenever she came in asking for tiny snacks. Recently, they had even started falling over themselves to try and impress her, although she didn’t understand why.

“Wait—” Hordak before she could help him through the doorway to her room. There was an underlying sharpness to his voice, but his breathing was also heavy, so there was very little bite. Entrapta suspected his temper was flaring because of his fatigue rather than any real annoyance with her. As they had made their way here from the sanctum, Entrapta had noticed that he had been leaning more and more heavily against her side.

“We just have to get inside, Hordak,” Entrapta said, trying to be reassuring. “And then I can help—”

“That can wait,” Hordak said, and his voice was softer this time.

“Then what is it?” Entrapta asked as she cautiously glanced around the hall. They did not seem to have been followed, but she would have preferred to get somewhere secure so that she could repair his armor in relative safety. She wasn’t worried about the Princesses. Statistically speaking, they were far more likely to flee the Fright Zone, since they had achieved their goal of rescuing Adora and destroying the portal machine…

But in her haste to get Hordak to safety, she hadn’t thought to keep an eye on Catra, and so she hadn’t seen which way Catra had run.

Hordak glanced at her. His brow ridge had furrowed and he let out a soft breath through his nose. “I… I merely wanted to check your room to make sure there is not an ambush waiting for us,” he whispered, as if he was wary that they would be overheard. “Stay behind me and keep quiet until I tell you it is safe…”

Then, he shifted his weight off of her shoulder and moved to lean against the doorway to her room. Wordlessly, Entrapta followed him, peeking out past his elbow as her hair carefully rest against his shoulder blades and arm.

At a glance, Entrapta thought her room looked fine. Still, she couldn’t help the shiver that ran up her spine as she recalled what had transpired there less than a hour ago. She tried to push it to the back of her mind, resisting the urge to shove her mask over her face. She couldn’t think about that right now. This was the safest place available to them at the moment with the sanctum left in ruins and the Fright Zone unsecured.

To distract herself from her own thoughts, she glanced up at Hordak instead, watching him as he ‘checked’ her room over.

As Hordak eased his head in through the doorway to her room, his ears were immediately alert, shifting upward with a noticeable twitch. His gaze darted around the room to give a precursory look over. From this angle, it was difficult to see his eyes, but if Entrapta had been close enough to see past the glow, she assumed she would have seen his pupils dilate from their more typical slit-like appearance. She had noticed that tended to happen when he was focusing on something—usually her, when she was talking.

He let out a soft, warbling chirp as he tilted his head to the side in a manner that could only be described as  _ endearing _ . As he listened, his ears eased forward and twitched, turning this way and that. He gave a second chirp, then a third and fourth. His ears were never still for longer than a moment. That was when Entrapta realized he was doing something akin to echolocation. Then, in the low light, she caught the flash of his teeth as he exposed his canines and stuck out his tongue. His face scrunched up in a rather comical way, as though he had just caught a whiff of something unpleasant, before he inhaled deeply through his mouth.

How curious…

Questions raced through Entrapta’s mind without any kind of filter. She would have to wait until Hordak said it was safe to ask any of them, of course, but she couldn’t help but bounce on her toes. An excited squeal left her before she could stop it, and Hordak abruptly closed his mouth as though she had startled him. When he glanced over his shoulder at her, she noticed that the tip of his tongue was still peeking out from between his lips. He didn’t appear to notice, either.

Entrapta decided not to mention it, cute as it was—if she did, he might have been more conscious of it in the future and never do it again. “Is it safe?” she prompted instead.

“I… yes,” Hordak said, nodding. “Yes, it should be a safe place for us to hide, for now.”

“Great!” Entrapta said, flashing him a smile before ducking beneath his arm again and allowing him to shift his weight back against her side. Carefully, she led him into her room and over to the cot that she had been sleeping on since she had arrived at the Horde. He seemed to be relieved to finally be off his feet and curled up in on himself, hugging his knees to his chest.

“Sit here,” Entrapta said as she began turning away from him. “I’ll be right back.”

Then, she felt him reach out and grab hold of her wrist, preventing her from stepping away.

Half-turning, she glanced first at where hi hand had wrapped around her wrist, and then up at his face. Tilting her head to the side in confusion, she frowned at him. Hordak’s ears had pinned back entirely, his eyes widening in what seemed to be surprised at his own actions, and he quickly released his hold on her wrist. He gaze fell as blue dusted across the tips of his ears.

“I…” he cleared his throat awkwardly, and his ears twitched in a manner that almost seemed nervous. “I did not mean to startle you.”

“You didn’t startle me,” Entrapta said, shaking her head. Confused her a little, maybe. “I’m just going to lock the door and get some of my tools.” She dipped her head, and tried to catch his gaze, and when she had it, she smiled at him. “I wasn’t going very far… so just sit tight and I’ll be right back.”

“… okay,” Hordak finally mumbled.

This time when she stepped away, he let her go.

Entrapta crossed her room, quickly heading for the door. With the power grid on the fritz, the door refused to budge until she gave it a helpful kick. Then, it slid along its track with a harsh scraping sound. Thankfully, the locking mechanism still seemed to be working, and it fell in place with a sharp thunk when she got the keypad working long enough to type in her code. The only way to get into her room now would have been either using the master code that could override any door in the Fright Zone or drop in through the nearby vent.

She didn’t think anybody besides herself or Imp actually knew how to use the ventilation system to get around the Fright Zone, and Hordak was one of the only people who knew the master code. They’d be safe here, for now… 

“Okay!  _ Now _ I can fix your armor!” Entrapta said cheerfully, clapping her hands together in excitement. She reached out with her hair to pluck her tools up from where she had left them sitting earlier before she had been forced to flee her lab. “Imp should be around any minute now!” she added as she came back over and plopped down onto the mattress beside him. “He knows how to get here cause he sleeps in here a lot.”

Hordak’s ears flicked curiously. “Is this where he disappears to in the middle of the night?”

“He seems to like cuddling with me,” Entrapta explained with a nonchalant shrug. More than once, she had woken up in the middle of the night by Imp as he impatiently nudged the crown of his head against her cheek and jawline. He always settled down the moment she opened her arms for him, though, and went right to sleep.

“Pups thrive off of physical contact,” Hordak said simply.

Entrapta tilted her head to the side, staring at him even as she started digging around through her tools to find the one she needed. “Pups?” she repeated in an attempt to keep the conversation up in an attempt to distract him from the pain he must have been in. “Is that what your species calls their young?”

“It… is the closest translation,” Hordak explained, his ears low. “Imp has been like that since… well, since he emerged from his vitrine.”

“Ooh,” Entrapta said, positively giddy as she plucked one of her finer tools free. “Don’t suppose I could bother you for information on your species while I’m poking around through some of your wiring?”

Hordak hesitated, although he definitely was not angry at her for asking such a thing of him. His ears were twitching in a manner she had come to realize meant ‘confusion’. Ultimately, he said nothing in response.

“Mostly, I’m curious,” Entrapta continued as she carefully rose up onto her knees and inched closer to him. “Tilt your head, please.”

He did as he was told without complaint, allowing Entrapta to easily access one of the panels that rested near his throat. She popped it open, and leaned in close to get a better look at the circuitry within. It looked like portions of it had overheated and fried, possibly aggravated by his earlier ‘tizzy’ in the sanctum. Her hair began deftly working to extract the damaged portions of the circuit, so that they could be replaced and possibly rerouted. In a couple of minutes he’d be as good as new.

“So, how about it?” Entrapta asked, peering up at him as her hair worked. Hordak met her gaze, his ears tilting downward, but she held his gaze and offered a cheerful smile as sparks from her work danced somewhere beneath her chin.

“… alright,” Hordak finally mumbled, tearing his gaze away. He seemed to have trouble fingering out where to look instead, and instead settled for staring down at his lap.

Entrapta grinned and shoved her welding mask over her face again with a stray flock of hair. “So!” she began as she carefully extracted another fried bit of wiring and discarded it. “What was that thing you did in the doorway?”

“… thing?” Hordak prompted. “I don’t understand your meaning.”

“Oh, sorry!” Entrapta said as she pushed her mask out of her face again, so she could look him in the eye. He regarded her curiously, ears perked and shifted forward. Behind the glow of his eyes, she could make out the shadow of his pupils, which had blown out to take up a good portion of his sclera, as if he was a curious kitten. Seeing that, Entrapta did her best to mimic what she remembered him doing earlier. She stuck out her tongue and scrunched up her nose, closing her eyes to achieve the same expression he had been sporting earlier when he had done the same.

Much to her surprise, Hordak let out a snort. Entrapta opened her eyes to look at him again, and found that he had attempted to muffle the sound behind his hand. His ears gave a nervous twitch, flushing blue at the tips again, and he regarded her with a mix of trepidation, although Entrapta didn’t know why. When she didn’t say anything and merely tilted her head to the side, Hordak cleared his throat and seemed to try to compose himself again.

“I don’t know the scientific name for it, much less how to translate it,” he admitted after a moment. “But it helps me smell. I can… differentiate scents better when I do that.”

“Ooh…” Entrapta hummed softly, hair beginning to frizz up in excitement. “How does it work? Tell me everything!”’

“I don’t… know?” Hordak admitted, tilting his head to the side. “I have never bothered to look it up, but… but if you are truly interested, there might be a file on it somewhere in the Horde’s databases…”

“Well, I’d definitely be interested in reading about your biology!” Entrapta said eagerly, reaching behind herself with her hair to begin rummaging around through one of the boxes of spare parts she had amassed since arriving at the Fright Zone. Her hair had enough reach that she didn’t even have to move from her perch on the bed! Although she was momentarily distracted, when she found the part she needed, she immediately returned her attention to her Lab Partner. “It might help me better interface the armor with your tissue, so you’ll have less tizzies—”

“I have never been in a tizzy,” he muttered under his breath, although there was no real bite to it.

“—also if you get sick again, I might be able to help you better than I did last time!” she said before she shifted how she was sitting. Straddling his thigh, she leaned in closer to make sure she had a good view of what she was doing as she reintegrated the circuit of his armor. Important and meticulous work. She didn’t want to screw it up. Under her touch, his shoulders stiffened, and she heard him take a deep breath, but he didn’t seem to be in pain.

“I…” he cleared his throat awkwardly. “When we return to the sanctum, I will… find the files in the database… for you… since you asked.

Entrapta smiled behind her mask and let out a happy little hum. “I think it will help fine tune the armor!”

Silence fell between them after that, allowing Entrapta to focus on her work without the distraction of conversation—much as she liked talking to Hordak. She could have forgotten that she wasn’t working on one of her bots, if not for the slow rise and fall of Hordak’s shoulders as he took deep, measured breaths or how his body heat made him feel like a living furnace. It was enough to remind her that he was more flesh than tech, and though most of her attention was focused on soldering wires in place, she still listened for any hints that he was in pain. Unlike her bots, he’d definitely feel that.

Once she was satisfied with her work, she leaned back and slotted the panel back in place. With a flock of her hair, she pushed her welding mask back out of her face, and reached out to lightly take hold of his wrist. Hordak stiffened for a brief moment before relaxing again and allowing her to begin checking his range of movement. First in one hand, and down the corresponding arm, and then with the other. She wanted to be certain she hadn’t knocked something else loose that would impede upon his movement down the line. 

Hordak seemed happy enough to let her do it too. He sat there without complaint.

“Should be good as new now!” she said when she was finally done, before reaching up towards the rafters with one of her ponytails. Lifting herself into the air, she swung over to the far side of her lab, where she could put her tools back in their appropriate place so she could easily find them later. 

“How are you feeling?” she asked, smiling over her shoulder at him.

“Better,” Hordak said as he flexed his fingers, moving less stiffly than he had been earlier in the evening. “And how about yourself?”

“Sore,” she admitted, rolling the shoulder she had fallen on earlier. There was still a lingering twinge of pain there, but it had faded substantially, so she doubted there would be any lasting injury. Her brow, however…

“I can… look over your wounds?” Hordak suggested, almost tentatively.

“Well, my shoulder seems better!” Entrapta said as she plopped down beside him on the mattress again. “But I think my forehead could use some looking at… I don’t have a mirror in here, so help would be appreciated!”

“Where is…” Hordak trailed off, looking around her room a little blindly.

“The first aid kit?” Entrapta finished for him, depositing the kit in question directly in his lap.

Hordak blinked owlishly at her, ears twitching in what seemed to be muted surprise. However, he said nothing and dug through the first aid kit until he found a small bottle of antiseptic and a roll of bandages. Then, he looked at her and gingerly reached out to tap her welding mask. “Will you remove this?”

She did so, setting it down beside her on the mattress. She wouldn’t need it for the rest of the evening anyway. As soon as Hordak was done, Entrapta was intent on taking a nice long nap.

Hordak reached out and gently smoothed her hair out of her eyes. Blood had caked there, although the nick Catra had left had stopped bleeding long beforehand. Still, Entrapta could see the way Hordak’s jaw clenched.

“I didn’t get a chance to tell you what happened with…” Entrapta trailed off, almost wistfully. She didn’t need to finish, though. Hordak seemed to have understood her intent regardless, judging by how his brow ridge furrowed as he applied some of the antiseptic to a clean rag. When he reached out again to hold her face gently in his hand, Entrapta melted into the touch, only to hiss softly as the rag made contact with her brow.

“Apologies…” Hordak said, pressing more gently. “You did not tell me, no… but from what I gathered based on your behavior and hers, it was…” He paused briefly, as if to consider his words, and she watched wordlessly as his ears shifted downward to be almost parallel with his shoulders. “Unpleasant.”

Entrapta sighed, pressed her cheek more firmly against his palm. It was warm against her skin. “She tried to shock me in the back with a stun baton… because I told her that the portal was dangerous. I don’t know what she would have done with me afterward.”

“It does not matter now,” Hordak hissed through his teeth. His eyes had narrowed as he stared at the deep cut running along her brow. “Look at this—she could have taken your eye!”

“She certainly tried…” Entrapta said. Perhaps, if she hadn’t been wearing her welding mask on her head, Catra could have gotten a better angle and actually achieved when she seemed to have been going for. Entrapta barely suppressed her shudder at the thought.

“What is that Etherian phrase—an eye for an eye?” Hordak asked, more to himself than to her. “If she  _ ever _ comes near you again—”

The rest of his words quickly descended into a language Entrapta didn’t recognize, but could only assume was his native tongue—it sounded guttural and spoken from the throat, combined with low hisses and pitched chirps. She knew that she’d probably be incapable of learning it, since she couldn’t even make half the sounds that seemed to be required, but she was content to listen. The sound of Hordak’s voice was like a soothing balm, and Entrapta smiled despite herself as she closed her eyes and leaned more heavily against his hand.

In spite of his underlying rage, he was taking the utmost care with  _ her _ , holding her face in such a way that she was not at risk of getting nicked by one of his talons. She had seen his talons leave deep gouges in solid metal before, so she knew that he would have little trouble piercing her skin if he had wanted to… yet his touch was soft, almost gentle, and the warmth of his palm against her cheek was leaving her more than a little drowsy. If not for the sting of antiseptic against her brow, she might have been able to fall asleep like this.

When Hordak fell silent, however, she cracked one of her eyes open. He was no longer looking at her. Instead, his gaze was trained on the ceiling, ears shifted forward in the direction of the vent on the far side of the room. His hearing might have been sharper than hers, but Entrapta could still hear what sounded like something crawling around through the ventilation system. The sound appeared to have set Hordak on high alert, and his lips curled back in the makings of a snarl.

The vent on the far side of the room was kicked out of place by a little boot and clattered noisily to the floor. Then, Imp poked his head out of the duct. He was covered from head to toe in dust and grime from climbing around through the ventilation system, and it looked like he had sustained a blow to the face—although from what, Entrapta couldn’t tell. However, he glided down easily, settling in her lap.

“Hey there, little guy… glad you could finally join us,” Entrapta cooed, lightly scratching him beneath his chin. Imp chirped softly in response.

“Hold still, I’m almost done,” Hordak said as he set the rag to the side and brought out the bandages. “Then, you can get some rest.”

Entrapta could feel her eyelids beginning to droop again as he carefully started applying the bandages to her brow. She didn’t know how much longer she would have been able to stay awake anyway… 

She glanced up at the First One’s crystal sitting at the base of Hordak’s throat again. She had spent many years trying to decipher the language of the First Ones, although she didn’t always have enough context to understand what the words she was reading meant. She still didn’t know what a  _ mara _ or a  _ serenia _ were, for instance, especially not in relation to the word portal… but she knew enough to understand what the crystal she had used to power Hordak’s armor meant, even if First One’s writing wasn’t terribly intuitive to read or write.

“… did you mean it?” Entrapta asked as Hordak finished applying the bandages. She tilted her head to the side and offered a soft, gentle smile, resting her chin atop her fingers.

Hordak’s ears flicked as he glanced at her. “Pardon?”

“When you said that I was more important than the portal?” she elaborated, smiling never fading.

“I… uh…” Hordak mumbled, and the tips of his ears flushed blue again. “Yes, of course—you are brilliant, and very capable, and—and—” He cut off and hissed softly to himself in that language that she couldn’t understand. Based on context, she could tell he was letting out a frustrated curse, though.

She giggled softly, and her smile widened. “Thanks. I think you’re more important than the portal too.”

After a moment, Hordak returned the smile tentatively.

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr/twitter: revasnaslan


End file.
